The Memory Crown
by S. Vespertine
Summary: Tony Stark has an important task tonight - erase certain events from his own memory. The ARK-Theta Prime vessel allows time-space travel and Tony contributed to its creation. But it's too dangerous to be allowed to exist, so after its destruction, he starts erasing it from everyone's memory until he is the only one left. But some things aren't meant to be forgotten.


**AN: Posted over at LiveJournal, its_always_been community for the Cliche Challenge. A big thank you to Cincoflex for betaing this work for me :). This is a repost to reflect the slight alterations I made, I hope you enjoy reading and that you leave reviews!**

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><p><strong>°^°^°^ THE MEMORY CROWN ^°^°^°<strong>

When the breakthrough came, it was staggering. Many people had been working on this top-secret project.  
>S.H.I.E.L.D agents, top government scientists of every branch sworn (and probably threatened) to secrecy, as well as, of course, Tony himself, along with a couple more guys from the team, and Dr. Banner, who was extremely easy-going … when he wasn't losing his temper.<p>

The machine had been 'built' for one purpose and one purpose only: to explore the span of time and space.

Literally mankind's dream come true.

With the adjustments that had been recently made, anyone (well, not just anyone, but theoretically a person) could use the machine to break through the bubble-like barriers existing throughout the world that contained each a different dimension.  
>There were countless worlds and realities all wrapped closely together, clustered within the same plane. The possibilities were endless. Imaginations could still very much run wild.<p>

The barriers were there in place to make sure that these realities did not bleed into each other and prevented utter chaos from breaking loose, dooming the planet into destruction.

Perhaps that, right there, should have warned man not to step forth, not to meddle with nature's ways, her mysteries. _Traveller be ye warned. Here be monsters_.  
>That was usually the sign used in ancient times to let sailors know that they were entering dangerous, uncharted waters hiding lurking creatures just waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting mariners.<p>

In the end the scientists, engineers, even the military (though not all), understood just what it was that they were messing with. The implications and the outcomes should anything happen, would be best left unimaginable. There were extremely strict rules to be followed when tampering with the 'portals', because every single tiny action had a reaction and a repercussion that, as it reverberated across the fabric of existence, got bigger and bigger like a tidal wave.

Too much was at stake.

And before the news could somehow even remotely begin to leak, before terrorist cells, ruthless dictators, and insane 'men of adventure' could find out about man's greatest achievement and invention it was all destroyed.

Tony, like so many others, understood that they had contributed to create perhaps the greatest weapon of mass destruction man could ever hope to make. If the fabrics holding the realities together should somehow rip and begin to tear, the whole framework would eventually unravel.  
>And that would indeed be the end of the world. That end would probably be worse than any and every apocalyptic prediction ever made throughout the ages.<p>

And so the great conspiracy began.

Everything pertaining to the creation of ARK-Theta Prime, the 'vessel' used to travel between dimensions, had to be destroyed. A select few people that had taken part in the creation of the vessel formed a secret team called the Resistance. It wasn't easy and it took a lot of risks and a long time, but their job was to make sure that the vessels be destroyed, and they wouldn't stop until it was done. The three vessels, housed in large, top secret officially non-existent warehouses scattered across the world were annihilated, along with the buildings that kept them. The plan had been worked out so beautifully, everything down to the smallest inconsequential detail, to make sure that everything was destroyed forever, and that no lives were lost in the process.

No one could fathom why almost simultaneously, three enormous explosions had suddenly gone off, each in a different country. The media speculated over it for weeks, and the circus came to town when nations started accusing each other, or wild allegations of terrorist attacks along with the threat of homeland security were made. But everything regarding the vessels had been top-secret from the very beginning; very select few people knew of their existence and their whereabouts. The facilities that housed each vessel were practically non-existent and officially off-the-map. Even satellites could not detect them. The highest security and cleverest technology had been involved, and as far as the Resistance knew the technology was THE most advanced on the planet - at least in _their _dimension.

But no one wanted to take the risk of leaving something behind, or for the secret to be revealed years down the line.  
>The Resistance thought about how to solve this problem. Though the vessels and their facilities had been destroyed, the project and its very existence lived on in people's memories. And this could not be allowed. But threats, bribes if not outright harm wouldn't do the trick. There were no guarantees that any of those solutions would make sure that the project wouldn't be revealed to the world; and the Resistance were the 'good guys', so anything extreme like that was immoral and out of the question. Then Tony Stark, whose contribution to the project had been vital, and who was one of the executive activists of the secret Resistance group, came up with a solution: they would erase the ARK-Theta Prime project from everyone's memories. He developed a top secret device that would do just that; he would be able to 'access' the memories from the cerebral cortex, and carefully selecting the ones pertinent to the project one by one, he would then extract them from the mind, essentially pulling them out of existence, as if they had never been there.<p>

It was insanely tricky to wield, because it had to be 'set' just right to make sure that _only _the right memories were erased … and not, say, those memories stored in a human's brain of experiences of that person's life, like their cognitive development. The result would be that the person could forget all the development they had gone through, and essentially be unable to speak, to walk, to think like an adult – their memory would be wiped completely, and it would render them essentially new-born babies trapped in adults' bodies.

Ethically speaking? It was a monstrosity of a device. But _very_ handy in this situation, because once the memories were erased, they could not be retrieved ever again.

* * *

><p>Everything had to be planned out with the utmost care possible. Nothing could be allowed to go wrong.<br>Too much was at stake.

And so, the very men who had built the vessels that allowed man to travel across the very fabrics of time and space, were ultimately the same who wiped them out of existence.

Tony and the other Resistance activists had sabotaged the facilities and destroyed every record that had ever existed or been made about operation ARK-Theta Prime. Then Tony went through the very difficult task of erasing hundreds' of individuals' memories of the project. He'd had to track down each individual and then administer the 'test' (that's what they were told it would be). He'd had to be careful to extract only the memories of the project. It had taken a long time to go through everyone, but eventually he'd done it.

The only memories left to erase were those of his comrades and partners in the Resistance.

He erased them last night. Now, Anthony Edward Stark, Iron Man, was the only person on the planet who _remembered_. But not for long.

Tonight he would erase his own memories, so that _no one _on the surface of the planet would ever remember anything about space and time travel being a possibility, an achievement.

But first, he had something to take care of. He would store certain memories in a safe place rather like the mythological Pandora's box. The object itself would contain memories taken from his very brain, and had been programmed to only open at Tony's … not as much physical touch, so much as the impression of his _soul_, his essence, that which made him essentially who he was, as the human who felt and thought.

No better security than that.

* * *

><p>Tony made sure to be alone in his home for a small window of time that night.<p>

He gazed down at the device he had made himself, the one that would contain those memories. What he was doing was dangerous. He was going against the core rule of the Resistance, the reason the group had been formed in the first place: he was leaving this one small trace behind.

When he and his other comrades had formed the group, the intention had been solely to destroy _everything _that led back to ARK-Theta Prime, including people's memories of it. Every person who had ever even remotely known about ATP had already been visited by Tony and his Lethe's Helmet – the device he had created to erase people's memories. Tony himself would be the last one to wear the Helmet, and then the Resistance's mission would be complete, their oaths fulfilled.

As far as humanity was concerned, ATP had never even conceptually existed.

Once those memories were stored he would wear the Helmet himself and forget. But not before viewing those precious memories what could possibly be the last time.

Tony had programmed the device to allow the memories to be 'viewed' only once the pass code had been activated. And that pass code was not a series of symbols, be they numerical or otherwise. The only thing that could unlock the Mnemoria was the essence of his soul, the sum of his cognitive self and both his conscious and subconscious. _Cogito, ergo sum._

It had been extremely complicated to fabricate. But he'd been born a genius and so Tony had eventually found a way.

Now he took the Mnemoria out of its box and placed it upon his head. The device looked anything but what one would expect such an object to look like; it did not resemble an horrendously advanced piece of technology that allowed one to store one's memories inside it.  
>Really, it looked like jewellery of all things.<br>Its glowing, graceful lines had been designed with one very special person in mind.

The Mnemoria was a deceptively simple-looking crown, fashioned to look like a piece that one of Mucha's ethereal beauties would wear. Elegant, beautiful, graceful and almost elfin-like.

He liked to think of his lovely mate as an Elven beauty, and since his darling lover was particularly fond of Mucha's paintings and of Art Nouveau designs, he'd used them to design the beautiful 'headpiece'.

Lethe's Helmet, the device which extracted the memories, was already stored in the safest place he could fathom, to be kept out of the general eye including that of the government, his competitors, the military, criminally evil masterminds bent on taking over the world … really the list was endless.

The Mnemoria though, he would give as a gift to Pepper on the day she would become his wife. An ember of astounding warmth lit up in his chest, radiating throughout his body at the mere thought of making her officially his in the eyes of the rest of the world. If he had his way (and generally he did) they'd be married by the end of the year – and that wasn't so very far away, he thought with anticipation, a warm smile lighting up his face.

Tony's thoughts returned to the task at hand. He carefully took the Mnemoria out of its pretty, protective casing and took a few moments to admire its unique, other-worldly design, its elegant beauty. He contemplated the object's secret, _real _purpose.

The headpiece was surprisingly feminine in appearance, with a filigree intricate design. The filigree weaved in small chains looping down from the base of the piece itself, cascading downwards. He fantasised, briefly, about the day he would give it to her, the day he'd be the happiest, luckiest bastard on the planet, the day she would become his wife. In his mind's eye, Tony saw her wearing the Mnemoria upon her head, her lustrous red waves regally falling about the gorgeous expanse of her shoulders, the filigree chains cascading from the base of the headpiece, reaching her jaw. The front piece of the crown would glitter with the colours of the rainbow as it rested upon her delicate forehead, matched by the sparkling of the clearest, most honest blue eyes he had ever seen.

She'd be wearing a long, white dress; something simple and floaty to match her flawless skin and excellent taste.

It was such a seraphic image, Tony was sure that his eyes would not have rested on a lovelier sight in his entire life.

Gorgeous Pepper. His beautiful – so beautiful it made him ache – Virginia. His angel.

"Sir, if you do not hurry, you will not have the time to carry out your task at a later date; this is your only opportunity to set all to rest."

JARVIS' voice was an abrupt shock, like being suddenly doused with a bucket of cold water. Tony had been so wrapped up in his musings, he'd lost sight of his goal and had let time pass. Ever the logical one, Tony's constant, most loyal companion, though a pale comparison to Pepper. He'd be equally lost without him as without _her_, Tony knew.

"Thank you for bringing my rambling reverie to an end, there. Let's get this done, shall we?"

JARVIS replied in his usual, unruffled manner, the epitome of efficiency. "I shall start the countdown, as previously agreed, sir."

"Launching operation Mnemosyne. Time till completion estimated forty-five minutes from now. Beginning preliminary physical check-up."

"Parameters are within the desired range. Ready when you are, sir."

Tony took a deep breath, and closed his eyes, relaxing in his seat, adjusting his breathing to a slow, deep rhythm. He carefully placed the Mnemoria upon his head, making sure that it was aligned properly.

As he felt the device powering up, he started recollecting those memories he wanted to put into it for safe-keeping.

As the images of the experienced events flashed through his mind's eye, he felt the hypnotic pull of the Mnemoria begin to work its lulling qualities on him, relaxing him even further, facilitating the process of recalling the right memories in their full complexity at the correct pace.

Tony prepared himself to look at these images for undoubtedly the last time in who knew how long. He didn't know when he'd be looking at these images again in his life, if ever at all. But that didn't matter right now. He concentrated further, and suddenly it was like he was reliving those moments right there and then.

* * *

><p><em>Tony found himself in one alternate universe. In this alternate universe, the world as he knew it was relatively the same. Some events had occurred here that had never happened to him, or to those around him in his reality, which had a lasting effect throughout the ripple of this reality's fabric.<em>

_This was the third one he visited now, and with the help of his comrade, who kept watch as he went through, Tony felt safe. He focused on his task. He'd developed a particular programming code that allowed the person travelling between dimensions to literally be invisible to others in their reality._

_He glided along the streets of the city, unseen, unfelt and undisturbed._

_His perceptions were somewhat altered. They didn't know if travelling through the fabric of the barriers altered their perceptive senses somehow, it was still a theory, but they did know that when one travelled to another dimension one could sort of … feel their way around. For instance, if they were looking for something in particular they'd know instinctively which exact paths to take._  
><em>In some cases it was even possible to perceive that which couldn't be seen yet … almost like precognition.<em>

_Tony concentrated hard, still walking amongst The Others undetected and undisturbed._

_He was looking for himself in this reality._  
><em>Mostly out of sheer curiosity - but a deeper desire was driving him. One of the scientists had quite poetically hypothesised that if one person found themselves partnered by that one same individual in numerous dimensions, then that meant that those two people were 'soul mates'.<em>

_Tony felt it imperative that the hypothesis be proved true or false, and so far, the data he'd collected pointed at a 'true'. In the other two alternate dimensions, granted a lot of things were different there, but in both instances, he and Pepper were bonded to each other as lovers._

_He was going to find out now if they were, in this reality, as well._

* * *

><p>Tony's hand reflexively clenched a little around the armrest of the chair, his eyes still closed, his breathing steady but infinitesimally faster than when he'd started out. The images unfolded in his brain, and as they did, they travelled through his neurons and into the magnetic fabric of the Mnemoria, designed specifically to literally pull the 'thoughts' or images or memories out of his head as he envisioned them.<p>

* * *

><p><em>When he found his counterpart he was confronted with a much younger, much … better – there were no other words for it – version of himself. He estimated The Other Tony to be in his early twenties.<em>

_OtherTony was in a hospital,Cedars-Sinai by the looks of it, only the physical layout of the building looked like it had been flipped 180 degrees on its axis. This phenomenon was not uncommon across the alternate realities. Tony focused on what he was seeing. __It was clear that they'd been in an accident – wait…_

_He was in a waiting room, slumped down into one of the seats, his arm in a sling, his youthful face – no facial hair – sporting cuts and bruises and a small laceration on his cheekbone._

_And there, next to him …_

_Sat_

_His_

_Mother._

_Tony couldn't breathe for a moment,overpowered by the intensity of his emotions._  
><em>He stared at his younger Other self and his mother longingly, dumbstruck. He wasn't prepared for THIS.<em>

_They were waiting for someone. He almost didn't dare to hope that –_

_ - then his father came out of one of the consulting rooms. He was in a wheelchair. The doctors assured them all it was temporary, but necessary, to give his broken bones time to heal._

_They'd been in a car accident._

_Howard Stark had been driving, his wife in the passenger seat next to him and OtherTony in the back. They were returning from some charity ball. OtherHoward was driving very, very fast – and the only time he did that was when they were arguing, until-_

_The driver had come out of nowhere._  
><em>The impact was shockingly loud and jarring, but not as much as the next one, when the Stark's car spun from the impact and into the path of another car … which was rammed out of the road, off the over-pass and into the road below.<em>

_Tony learned that the drunk driver was miraculously still alive. OtherTony and his parents were injured, but alive._

_The passengers of the third car had not been so lucky._  
><em>It was a family of three, the parents and their daughter. <em>_Both parents had died instantly on impact. The girl had come out of it with a few scrapes and bruises, and a couple of fractured ribs. She hadn't been wearing her seatbelt. And it had saved her life. When the car flew into the air and dropped thirty feet below, her body had sailed down and gotten jammed on the floor between front and backseats. Her parents, strapped down by their seatbelts, had been unable to move as the car landed nose-first on the tarmac, crunching into a macabre, flattened parody of a vehicle._

_But it wasn't all of these facts that pained Tony to the point of agonised disbelief, oh no. It wasn't even that the second car had been hit because OtherHoward had been driving way too fast and the force of impact had wrecked their car and made it careen into the third._

_As Tony watched, OtherMaria quietly sobbed into her hands, because Howard's over-the-limit speed had contributed largely to the fate of the third car, and so to those poor people's death._  
><em>She was crying for the girl, who sat numb and as though unseeing, ground crumbling beneath her feet after having received the news that she was orphaned.<em>

_She was crying for the girl who was called Virginia._  
><em>Virginia Louise Potts.<em>

_The rising *horror* Tony felt at that moment was powerful enough to drive him to his knees, in front of OtherPepper, staring at her in shocked agony. She looked no older than sixteen, he estimated._  
><em>The freckles in her face stood out all the more against the pallor of her skin. Her eyes were dull and unseeing, red with the tears she'd shed. The way she was clutching at a necklace, probably her dead mother's, broke Tony's heart all over again.<em>

_His sheer joy at seeing that his parents had not died in that car crash had been short-lived._  
><em>It had been out-shadowed by the agony of finding out that in this reality, his father had essentially gotten Pepper's parents killed in the accident that was supposed to have ended HIS and Maria Stark's lives.<em>

_His father had made OtherPepper an orphan._

_After that he saw indistinct bits and pieces. OtherHoward was overcome with shame and guilt, and started drinking himself to oblivion. OtherMaria had bullied Howard viciously into petitioning to become Virginia Potts' guardians until she became of age. OtherTony had seen OtherPepper grow up, had lived in the same house as her, until such a time as she'd gone off to college._

_He saw her visits on breaks from college during vacations. He saw the instance where she brought her boyfriend home for the Starks to meet, and saw the sheer vicious quality of OtherTony's jealousy._  
><em>He saw that OtherMaria had loved the girl essentially like the daughter she'd never had. It looked like she'd schemed to get her and her son together.<em>

_OtherPepper seemed to have forgiven OtherHoward … but the relationship between them was very strained. The relationship between her and OtherTony did not change until a few years later, where she had stopped working for Stark Industries – her college-time occupation – and had gone on to become a brilliant pianist._  
><em>It was evident that OtherMaria and OtherTony were proud of her accomplishments.<em>

_Tony watched, bittersweet, as OtherTony turned up at her apartment one night, in a furious rage because the guy she'd been dating had been caught cheating on her. The furious row that had followed was amusing, because it reminded Tony of HIS Pepper when she worked herself up into one of her stupendous rages, eyes blazing. It was also painful, because they flung insults and said some very hurtful things to each other._

_Tony felt somewhat better, cheering inside for OtherTony, when he suddenly hauled her to him and kissed her with all the passion he'd kept restrained all those years. He imagined that OtherTony had restrained himself from telling OtherPepper how he really felt because she'd been too young and living with him, looking up to him as an older brother._  
><em>After she moved out of the Starks' home, nothing between them had happened because she was too busy … then she seemed uninterested, and now … well, his Pepper had always hidden a very passionate, sensual vein to her character behind the charismatic businesswoman who was always efficient and in control.<em>  
><em>Watching OtherTony having sex with OtherPepper, the way their bodies intertwined hungrily, did not make him at all feel like a voyeur.<em>

_Then things became indistinct again, only making out brief glimpses, bits and pieces of their future. The two of them having breakfast in bed, wrapped up in each other and in rumpled bed sheets. Dinner at his Other parents' house._  
><em>OtherTony in a low-lit theatre, staring enthralled up at the stage, where an elegant redhead sat at a piano, making beautiful music with a quick dance of her precise, nimble fingers.<em>  
><em>OtherMaria watching tearfully, a happy grin on her face, as OtherPepper shyly showed her an engagement ring on her finger; OtherTony stood close by, pride in every curve of his erect body, eyes gleaming at the two women happily, before turning to smile crookedly at his father, who clasped his shoulder, a quiet smile on his face.<em>

_All of this Tony saw, and it lit up a fire in his mind._  
><em>Incendiary thought that it was, maybe his colleague had been right … <em>

_Maybe there was such a thing as soul mates, after all._

* * *

><p>Tony breathed out heavily as the Mnemoria sucked the memory into its framework, and readied himself for the next round. He could hear JARVIS' countdown quietly chiming in the background, but remained completely concentrated on the task. One slip-up and goodness knew what damage he'd be causing his mind. He immersed himself within his mind once more, sinking deeply into that relaxed trance-like state again, calling up to front the next memory, readying himself for another round.<p>

* * *

><p><em>In this alternate universe, so many things had gone wrong in his life, in one way or another. His parents had still died when he was young, and Obadiah Stane, (OtherStane), had not wasted any time in usurping him of his rightful place in his father's company.<em>

_Eventually it came out that his parents' car had been sabotaged, and OtherStane had been the one to order the hit, landing him in jail for a long, long time._

_OtherTony was not a womanizer here, but he was definitely a damned drunk. It was painful to watch himself slide into alcoholism, especially since that weakness carried over into so many dimensions, always affecting his relationship with Pepper._

_The OtherPepper of this reality was his faithful assistant, efficient and unbending, though amazingly patient, as usual._

_But in this reality, she was also mute._

_She used sign language to communicate and still managed to get everything done and keep him in a fairly straight line._

_One of his competitors had tried to take him out once, by going straight for the weakest chink in OtherTony's armour: the mute PA. By the time they'd realised she'd been poisoned, because he'd made her drink something that had been meant for him, it had almost been too late, and things were made even more difficult because she could not talk._

_Tony looked at OtherTony as he sometimes went through sign language communication routines at night, with a more impersonal version of what would be JARVIS, and thought he understood the single-minded intensity that was employed in the task; he thought that if HIS Pepper could only communicate through sign language, he'd do anything and everything in his power to be able to communicate with her, to be a part of her world._

_He especially adored the sign for 'thank you', a simple pressing of one's fingers to one's mouth before bringing them away from the face, fingers pointing upwards, slashing towards the other person –it was so poignant. He adored the way OtherPepper communicated with her *body* in so many different ways, occasions, and with different people._

_Tony saw the way OtherHogan stared at OtherPepper, and couldn't stop himself from *fuming* inside, because Happy was eyeing *his* woman, dammit, *the* one no one must ever touch,HIS Pepper –_  
><em>OtherTony watched them like a hawk, and did not think twice about firing OtherHogan on the spot when he caught him flirting with OtherPepper.<em>

_... Tony saw their future, the way OtherPepper's body language seemed to become more and more *intimate*, sensual, when she was communicating with OtherTony._

_The next flash he saw was of them, happy and in love, living together. __The way OtherPepper used her body to communicate with OtherTony never ceased to amaze Tony, and sometimes she conveyed her emotions so intensely with her gentle gestures that they threatened to choke the breath out of him._

_One such instance was when he found himself drifting inside a hospital waiting room again: Here OtherTony looked distraught and almost beside himself as he pushed at the nurses barrelling into his way to stop him from going in. They were ignoring his savage yells of "Get outta my FUCKING WAY!", or "She needs me there!", or "I'm gonna *tear* both your asses apart if you don't let me in now!"_

_(Tony saw, and thoroughly approved.)_ _OtherTony was trying to get to the other side of the corridor, where OtherPepper was being visited by a doctor. Something bad had happened._

_Tony stayed until they let OtherTony in to see her. What OtherPepper communicated and especially the desolate, desolate way in which she did it, tears streaming down her grief-stricken face, made him feel helpless. OtherPepper used her hands, one of them tear-shaped and hiding behind another, this one an open palm, fingers close together. Her movements, so gentle, so deliberate, held a world of pain. The tear-shaped hand slid downwards behind the screen of the other, indicating something – falling? – and then she cradled her arms towards her side, as though holding an imaginary baby - *oh*… Tony felt his heart stop as he understood what she was saying._

_The second OtherTony's face scrunched up in pain, his eyes glistening, OtherPepper broke down and sobbed violently into OtherTony's lap. She clutched at his trousers, her hands curling and uncurling into helpless fists by the side of her head, as potent a sign of grief as Tony had ever seen. __The last thing he saw was OtherTony gently folding in upon himself on top of OtherPepper's back, his hands coming up to hold onto her heaving sides, utter anguish in his eyes as his lover howled in grief in his lap. She could not talk, could not produce words, but the sight of the gestured something falling away in front of her stomach, and the sounds she produced in her grief deeply imprinted themselves on Tony's mind._

* * *

><p>On and on, he let these memories be pulled out of his mind, leaking into the Mnemoria until ... at last he had no more to give.<p>

JARVIS signalled the imminent approach of the end of the session, so that Tony could wrap things up quickly; a prolonged use of the Mnemoria had detrimental effects on physical health and mental stability.  
>Once the memories were collected, Tony gently opened his eyes. He breathed deeply, feeling his feet, his legs, his hands and arms, his heart beating, and the nagging ache at the back of his skull radiating towards his neck and upwards behind his eyes.<br>He ignored it as best as he could, and carefully raised his arms – even movement like that brought nausea roiling in his stomach at the pain that pulsed in his head – and removed the Mnemoria from his head with the utmost care, making sure it had powered off and had resumed its innocent-looking disguise, before replacing it inside its protective casing.

He felt too many conflicting emotions to analyse each and every one. But foremost came the bittersweet sense of achievement, then staggering loss, then resentment, defiance … and many things thereafter, until at last … Acceptance.

Tony accepted, in the end, that it was something that needed to be done. This way the memories would not *truly* be gone, they'd merely be tucked away some place safe. He tried to tell himself that the fact that he wouldn't even remember about them existing, didn't matter. It wasn't easy to accept. Some of the memories had been so wonderful, others so painful, but Tony did not want to forget. Some things were never meant to be forgotten, and the things he had seen in the alternate dimensions ... the ways his life could have panned out according to how different events shaped it ... these memories were something he did not want cancel permanently. He wanted the chance to one day look at them and _remember. _

But his sense of duty could not be denied. It had to be done. All signs that ARK-Theta Prime had ever even existed _had_ to be erased, no matter the cost. If they weren't, the resulting cost of *that* would be far too dear for all of humankind to pay.

Now that his precious memories connected to ATP, though not necessarily *of* ATP itself, had been preserved, he could proceed to put on Lethe's Helmet, and erase it all from his mind. It was what he and his comrades had vowed to do the day they became the Resistance.

The clean up had been a long, arduous process, but tonight it all ended. After tonight, Tony could go back to living his normal life the way it was before ATP, the way it *should* be without ATP.

He would *not* erase the memories he had of the OtherTonys and OtherPeppers. Tony was determined to learn from them. He'd learnt, thanks to what he'd seen in the alternate universes he had visited, that they truly were soul mates. No matter what their reality was they had always seemed to find each other. He felt like a lost sailor homing in on his Northern Star who called him and guided him home.

They'd been through so many things, both here and in other places. Those memories served to remind himself to remain grounded in the knowledge that, no matter what, they were strongest when together. They were meant to *be* together, they would always somehow find their way to a future together, and that was all that mattered. Tony was sure that, even if his mind could not exactly recollect those things, his heart, his soul would always remember them for him.

Feeling comforted by that thought, and eager to put this whole thing behind him, Tony reached for the Helmet and placed it on his head.

JARVIS obligingly scanned him and declared him fit to proceed with the memory erasing, as long as he kept it as brief as possible.

Tony gave the thumbs up for Operation Mnemosyne to proceed to its final stage.  
>Before he went under, he instructed Dummy and Butterfingers to pull the Helmet off him when he'd wake again and to store it carefully they-knew-where.<p>

He waited one moment more, to fully taste the magnitude of what he was about to do.

With a small smile, Tony looked up one last time before closing his eyes.

"JARVIS, activate protocol Munnin Beta Gemmel Five."  
>JARVIS agreed and started deleting everything from his memory databanks.<br>Tony smiled and let the Helmet erase ARK-Theta Prime from his mind.

When he'd wake up, JARVIS, too would have erased everything from his own memory. Dummy and Butterfingers were not capable of holding 'thoughts' – commands, instructions – for long periods of time, they just weren't designed that way. He did not have to worry about them. Tony closed his eyes and was soon lost in the trance-like state of being brought on by the dream-like quality of the pull of the Helmet.

* * *

><p>When Tony Stark woke up sometime later all seemed normal. The Lethe's Helmet had been safely stored away from potential prying eyes. Nothing looked undisturbed in his workshop. Tony himself could honestly say that nothing seemed to be amiss.<p>

And yet …

A niggling feeling at the back of his mind remained, some kind of emptiness persisted at the edges of his consciousness. Tony shrugged and checked the updates of the suit's repairs. That's when he noticed it. Next to a rather beautiful, and very unique-looking tiara of delicate manufacture and graceful beauty, there was a small piece of paper. Frowning slightly, Tony picked it up and read it. His face took on a puzzled look.

For one second he felt the strangest sense of déjà vu. He contemplated it for a while, then took the tiara and placed it in its box. Its gems sparkled even in the low lighting of the workshop. They seemed to twinkle at him as though sharing something secret.

_Hmm. Pepper was right_, he mused silently, a bemused smirk on his lips. _He really was too paranoid_.

Tony closed the box and put it away safely. After all, he'd made it himself for the person who mattered the most to him; he would give it to her on what would be the most important day of their lives. When he heard footsteps behind him, he knew immediately who it was, and turned to face her.

Pepper smiled back, and suddenly found herself in his warm embrace. She was a bit startled at the intensity with which he was hugging her to him, almost as though they hadn't seen each other for days. Tony kissed the sensitive spot on her neck that always made her shiver, the one beneath her ear. Pepper shivered, and Tony chuckled. He tightened his arms around her and lovingly nuzzled her fragrant hair.

Whatever wrongness had altered his mood before, her presence immediately made up for it, and he basked in the feeling of this intimate moment.

Despite having been a couple for a few years now there were times when Tony still marvelled at how right it felt, their being together. He could never imagine wanting any one else by his side. He just hoped he was man enough for her, that he was worthy of her. Not a day went by where didn't try to be a better person, not since having opened his eyes to the web of lies his life had become before Afghanistan.

Pepper, with her strength, and her purity, her kindness and her love, served as the best reminder of what he had to live for. Sometimes it felt as though his love for this quiet, brave, independent woman knew no boundaries. It felt like it could stretch and reach across time into infinity. Tony mentally snorted at his waxing so poetic … and then happily thought that, as long as he didn't _speak it out loud_ and even then only to Pepper , that it didn't matter.

He smiled smugly when she ran her fingers through his hair gently massaging his scalp, the gesture as much tender as it was loving. _Soon_, he thought. Soon it would be time to present her with a ring and ask her to keep him for as long as they both shall live. The thought alone made Tony feel like getting into the suit and flying up so high, flipping and diving in intricate acrobatics in happiness.

He felt for the paper he'd hastily folded and hidden in his pocket, a secret smile softening his features, his eyes alight with love and mischief as he looked at her. The beautiful crown he'd made her seemed like the perfect gift for him to give her on their wedding day. Tony made a mental note to remember what was written on the piece of paper; he had a good feeling she'd appreciate that more than anything.

_**Pepper,**_

_**The memories of us will always be the best part of my days, no matter who or where we are.**_

_**Love, always and forever,**_

_**Tony**_

* * *

><p>The End.<p>


End file.
